Chaetomorpha
Active Member
Hey guys/gals,
My tank is 1 year and 3 months old, I seem to have a problem with this brown/reddish stringy bacteria that used to be on my sand but now is also covering some of my rocks... It doesnt seem to effect my corals but I am concerned. Here is some info on my tank and what might have caused it.
Anyway, my sump has no sock, just pretty much a chamber (return) with a good skimmer (octopus diablo 160), a chamber with excellent growth of chaetomorpha, and then a chamber with one small purigen baggy and one chemipure baggy and a little fishies phosban reactor filled with some phosban...
Here is what I have done to correct the problem:
I have replaced the phosban with carbon instead and started dosing Red Sea NO3-PO4-X (I dose 5ml's a day)
My readings have Always been pretty good when it comes to phosphates (Hanna shows it usually at .03, and my nitrates never show up. I have recently found out that it probably exists in my system but is used up before I can test for it...
So any help is appreciated, some questions I have is, does it look like Cyano or Dino? Am I doing enough by switching to red sea with some higher mag alk and cal then what I was putting in my system before? Should I fill my little fishies phosban 150 completely with carbon or just halfway? Thanks again you all are great, glad I have this forum to go to...
My tank is 1 year and 3 months old, I seem to have a problem with this brown/reddish stringy bacteria that used to be on my sand but now is also covering some of my rocks... It doesnt seem to effect my corals but I am concerned. Here is some info on my tank and what might have caused it.
- I have two MP10's for my 93g cube but have now increased flow by adding a small weak power head down low in the cube to help with getting circulation near the sand. So might have been low circulation?
- I dont know how but last week I checked my alk and it was very low almost below 6, I have started dosing and got it to 7 currently and have purchased a new salt (Red Sea-blue bucket) which should increase it closer to 8. So it could be my alk? or is that a symptom of my issue at hand meaning did it drop dramatically because of the bacteria since it used to always run at 7 or 8 before this sudden one week drop
- I lowered my Radion light cycle to 12 hours (only about 4 hours where it is over 90% whites) just in case I had too much lights (had it 13 hour cycle but again only about 5 hours of it was over 90%)
- I have always done 10g water changes, and try to suck out some of the bacteria from the sand bed bu its a losing battle so far and much harder to remove now from the rocks.
Anyway, my sump has no sock, just pretty much a chamber (return) with a good skimmer (octopus diablo 160), a chamber with excellent growth of chaetomorpha, and then a chamber with one small purigen baggy and one chemipure baggy and a little fishies phosban reactor filled with some phosban...
Here is what I have done to correct the problem:
I have replaced the phosban with carbon instead and started dosing Red Sea NO3-PO4-X (I dose 5ml's a day)
My readings have Always been pretty good when it comes to phosphates (Hanna shows it usually at .03, and my nitrates never show up. I have recently found out that it probably exists in my system but is used up before I can test for it...
So any help is appreciated, some questions I have is, does it look like Cyano or Dino? Am I doing enough by switching to red sea with some higher mag alk and cal then what I was putting in my system before? Should I fill my little fishies phosban 150 completely with carbon or just halfway? Thanks again you all are great, glad I have this forum to go to...
